Please Write to the Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo on the 11th Anniversary of the Opening of the Prison

10.1.13

Friday January 11 is the 11th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an ongoing legal black hole, and an experimental prison for holding Muslim men and boys without rights, and subjecting them to torture and other forms of coercion and abuse, and medical and psychological experimentation.

At Guantánamo, the US authorities manufactured a rationale for holding these men and boys — calling them “the worst of the worst,” and disguising the fact that the majority of them were sold to the US military for substantial bounty payments by their Afghan and Pakistani allies. They did this through the extraction of false statements in which pliant prisoners — whether tortured or otherwise abused, or bribed or pushed until they could take the pressure no longer — made false statements about their fellow prisoners, and/or themselves, which continue to be regarded as something resembling evidence by all three branches of the US government, even though the closest analogy for what this information is in reality can be found in the false statements uttered by the victims of the witch hunts in the 17th century.

For those who are concerned about the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, this is a worthwhile time to write to the remaining 166 prisoners, to let them know that they have not been forgotten. Disturbingly, they have largely been abandoned by the Obama administration, by Congress, by the courts, by the media and by the American public, even though 86 of them were cleared for release three years ago by an interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force established by President Obama to review the cases of all the prisoners, and even though around half of them were previously cleared for release, between 2004 and 2007, by military review boards established by President Bush.

For both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, it seems to me, there is no better time to send a message of support to the remaining prisoners in Guantánamo.

So please, if you care about justice, and about the indefinite detention of men, who, whether cleared or not, have become scapegoats in America’s institutionalized disdain for acceptable forms of detention, write to any or all of the remaining 168 prisoners. If you are an Arabic speaker, or speak any other languages spoken by the prisoners besides English, feel free to write in those languages. Do please note that any messages that can be construed as political should be avoided, as they may lead to the letters not making it past the Pentagon’s censors, but be aware that your messages may not get through anyway — although please don’t let that put you off (see the note at the bottom of this article to explain why letters might be returned without explanation).

If you want any more encouragement about the significance for prisoners of receiving letters, then please watch the short film below — part of Amnesty International’s ongoing letter-writing campaign— featuring my friend, the former prisoner Omar Deghayes, showing letters he received in Guantánamo and explaining how much they meant to him — and to his fellow prisoners. This was filmed as part of an interview with Omar that is featured in the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and myself), and available on DVD here — or here for the US.

Please write to the remaining 166 prisoners in Guantánamo

When writing to the prisoners please ensure you include their full name and ISN (internment serial number) below (these are the numbers before their names, i.e. Shaker Aamer ISN 239).

Please address all letters to:

Detainee Name
Detainee ISN
U.S. Naval Station
Guantánamo Bay
Washington, D.C. 20355
United States of America

Please also note that an additional prisoner, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (ISN 10012, Tanzania) was transferred to the US mainland from Guantánamo in May 2009 and received a life sentence after a federal court trial in January 2011. He is being held in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. To send a letter, the address is as follows (the number following his name is his unique prison number):

I sent this to all Afghanistan prisoners. It includes a color picture of Afghani people in their blue scarves and the text is in color:

I am writing to assure you that you have not been forgotten. I believe that if we want peace, we have to work for justice.

I pray that justice will be swift for you. I have made and distributed over 200 blue scarves.

After 3 decades of endless war the once-thriving people of Afghanistan have been brought to their knees. Facing near hopelessness there came a simple thought, why not love?
A small group of women took to the streets wearing blue scarves. They chose blue as a unifying color because the whole world shares one blue sky. Next, men and women stood together all wearing blue scarves. Armed only with their love they faced riot police and smiled 🙂 “Love is how we’ll ask for peace.” The Blue Scarf has become a universal symbol of togetherness from Afghanistan to EVERYWHERE. The Blue Scarf can tie the world together. A global movement has arrived. It starts with YOU. TheBlueScarf.org

Andy, here is something I wish I had known earlier. Charlie Savage of the NYTimes interviewed Milton, the civilian who manages the prison library at Guantanamo:

Milton has a small budget for new acquisitions, and detainees’ lawyers and family members can send books to specific inmates through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Those copies are first donated to the library and then passed along to the prisoners, who can keep them in their cells for up to 60 days, rather than the usual 30.

A few years ago I earned an Amazon gift certificate, and decided to try to use it to send some books directly to Omar Khadr, via Amazon. Through Amazon’s shipment tracking function I could see that shipment bounce around Washington for a week or so, before finally being returned to Amazon.

Savage’s quote says “lawyers and family members” can send books via the Red Cross. I wonder if book donations from others can be sent through the Red Cross?

[…] The letter-writing campaign was started two and a half years ago by two Facebook friends, Shahrina J. Ahmed and Mahfuja Bint Ammu, and it has been repeated every six months (see here, here, here and here). […]

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Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo, co-director, We Stand With Shaker. Also, singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers) and photographer. Email Andy Worthington